If you feel so inclined, click on over to Senator Flake’s Facebook page, and let him know what you think. I did and here’s mine: I voted for you Senator Flake. I even donated some of my hard-earned money to you, and placed a yard sign in my yard for you. But I have a question: I would love to know how amnesty is going to help people like my 26-year old son, an ex-Marine, who is now studying to become an auto mechanic. Flooding our job market with millions of new workers is going to do nothing but dilute the wages of people like my son. Why do you want to punish law-abiding citizens because a bunch of people crossed our borders illegally “out of love?” I would love to hear from you how amnesty is going to help with already depressed blue collar wages. Thank you for your time. “I’ve been asked what I think of this statement. Truth is, I agree with Jeb, and I applaud him for having the guts to say it. Growing up here in Arizona, I’ve seen what motivates those who come here illegally. Sure, some come with the intent to do harm or simply to take advantage of our generosity. But many come to find work to feed their families. To lump everyone who crosses the border illegally into the same class is unfair and unproductive.” Jeff Flake on Jeb Bush’s “Out of Love” Comment

We should be marching in the streets of Washington. “’I can tell you that waste, falsification and fraud are rampant,’ says one of my new sources, who works as a Census supervisor in the Midwest and handles a number of surveys, including those on jobs, health and crime. When this source complained, higher-ups “told me to shut my mouth.” When that didn’t happen, the source was deprived of work.” Fraud runs rampant in Census Bureau

This story should be on the front page of every paper in the country. “Face it, America is hurtling toward third world status, and the signs are all around us, from the growth of a violent underclass to the rise of an oligarchy to a government that lies without shame and re-doubles on those lies when challenged. One of the other symptomsis the emergence of phony government statistics. John Crudele of the New York Post has broken story after story oin fraud in the Census Bureau’s statistics, which are used for many political and economic purposes, affecting the lives of all Americans. Based on sources throughout the Bureau, he is now charging widespread fraud, and some of his sources have agreed to speak with an Inspector General. These whistle blowers need protection against retaliation.” Third world America: phony statistics

May the Democrats get what they deserve in November. “There are parts of Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, that were postponed because they are unpalatable,” he told the Boston Herald. The “Cadillac tax” that goes into effect in a few years and taxes employer health plans over a certain value, he said, will be “the first time in this country’s history that we have actually taxed health care.” [Snip] “There are parts of Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, that were postponed because they are unpalatable,” he told the Boston Herald. The “Cadillac tax” that goes into effect in a few years and taxes employer health plans over a certain value, he said, will be “the first time in this country’s history that we have actually taxed health care.” [Snip] ‘We will lose seats in the House,” he said. “I am fairly certain of that based on the poll numbers that are coming out from the more experienced pollsters down there, and I think we may lose the Senate.’” Dem Congressman on Obamacare: The Worst Is Yet to Come, It’s ‘Going to Hit the Fan’

The Democrats buying votes through lawlessness. “Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that dozens of lawyers will be reassigned to the Justice Department’s pardon office in anticipation of a surge of applications from drug offenders for reductions in their sentences — applications the Obama administration has signaled it would look upon favorably. This exercise is another transparent usurpation of legislative power by the president. The pardon power is just the camouflage for it.” Clemency for Drug Offenders is More Presidential Lawlessness Disguised as Pardon Power

By any means necessary. “What remains unappreciated by far too many, particularly Republicans and conservatives in Washington who years ago should have recognized the need to more proactively and more aggressively resist, is that Obama, his White House, and his regulatory leviathan intend to impose that transformation by any means necessary: constitutional or unconstitutional, legal or illegal, civil or hostile — and now, as seen earlier this month in Nevada, nonviolent or violent. There are no rules, only constant tests of limits. [Snip] Washington’s go-along Republican and conservative culture should take a lesson from Nevada. They don’t need guns. All they need is the will to defund any and all federal agencies which have overstepped their constitutional or legislated bounds.” The ‘We Do What We Want, Bleep You’ Administration

More on the above topic. “Finally, Attorney General Holder and the Obama administration may be the worst imaginable officials to carry out a commutation program based on the president’s pardon power. When he served as deputy attorney general under Attorney General Janet Reno, Holder was infamously at the center of the Clinton administration’s pardon scandal. He was a key figure in the 1999 pardons of FALN terrorists; and the pardon process he engineered for Clinton resulted in the release not only of Marc Rich but of two convicted Weather Underground terrorists. So obviously, his idea of “nonviolent” probably does not conform to what most Americans think of when they hear that term. Moreover, we should be under no illusion: this is not an exercise in mitigating injustice in individual cases. This is an abuse of political power to rewrite the federal drug laws because, as a matter of ideology, Obama does not agree with stern sentences for drug offenders.” Clemency for Drug Offenders Is More Presidential Lawlessness Disguised as Pardon Power

Big/Corrupt Government

Another “read the whole thing” article. “1. Washington lobbyists have excessive influence [Snip] 2. Bigger government means all sectors of the economy need guide dogs that are sniffing for special treats [Snip] 3. Lobbyists make millions while average Americans make $51,371 [Snip] 4. Washington connections mean access and influence for clients [Snip] 5. Washington runs on money that buys power.” Everything You Hate About D.C. Is in the Podesta Divorce

Common Core

Leftist propaganda. “The Chicago curriculum does focus heavily on well established history and events — including discussions on slavery, the histories of black inventors, the civil rights movement and President Obama. But other sections also delve into controversial areas. The eighth grade literacy section unit, titled “Being an Advocate to Social Justice,” directs students to the website for the American Civil Liberties Union. It also includes a poem titled “Racism is Around Me Everywhere,” cartoons from the website LeftyCartoons.com, and it encourages discussion of Attorney General Eric Holder’s infamous “nation of cowards” quote.” See what they’ll be teaching in the Chicago public schools

Our clueless president bringing ruin to all ends of the earth. “He went on to point out that in capturing Crimea, Russia will dominate the region for “a couple of hundred years, never [have to] ask the Ukrainians for another lease agreement” for their navy on the Black Sea. Krauthammer said Putin is winning ‘on a geopolitical level that Obama does not even seem to understand.’” Krauthammer’s Take: Obama ‘Clueless’ To Putin’s Geopolitics

George W. Bush

I reported on this yesterday, but worth a repeat: He’s had nothing to hide to begin with. “A close observer of White House operations, Towson University political science professor Martha Kumar, said Bush likely views himself as having little to lose and something to gain by being open with his official files. “He left the presidency very comfortable with his record. I think that’ll carry through into the release of information from it,” Kumar said. ‘I think he believes his actions were justified and that the records will demonstrate that.’” George W. Bush surprises on White House records

Inequality

Why can’t people reason from point A to point B? “The Democrats’ current campaign against income inequality is puzzling, if you think about it. Income inequality is a wonderful thing. In fact, a society without income inequality would scarcely be worth living in. No income inequality means no promotions; no advancement; no reward for training, education, hard work or experience; no benefit to being talented, creative or innovative. Imagine if you graduated from high school (or dropped out, for that matter) knowing that no matter what you did, you could never exceed the income you earned as a first-year novice in the labor market. Income inequality is just another word for opportunity.” The “Rich” are Everywhere

Truth telling. “So now we know why the Democrats are adopting economic inequality as their central issue: because their constituents, the people who live under policies crafted by the left, are the ones who experience the highest degree of income inequality in their own lives. That’s the upshot of a recent study of income inequality organized by congressional district: “Across the country, inequality is lower in Republican districts than in Democratic ones” and is “highest in the New York City district of Representative Jerry Nadler, a liberal Democrat.” Who has the congressional district with the least income inequality? That would be Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann, who represents suburban Minneapolis. [Snip] So no wonder Democrats are enamored with all of that rhetoric about inequality and class warfare. Their constituents, the audience they are addressing, are far more likely to live in the American equivalent of Rio de Janeiro, a class society starkly divided between squalid, hopeless, crime-ridden favelas and safe, beautiful downtown playgrounds for the rich. As usual, the Democrats are arsonists posing as the fire brigade, offering to solve a problem they created.” Why Democrats Are the Party of Inequality

Please read the whole thing. “Envy will remain a powerful social force as long as so many of our 21st-century rich have the manners and tastes of the Kardashians rather than those of Thacher Longstreth, and the Left will forever appeal to our baser natures. But that will only be politically potent so long as we conservatives are not offering a compelling alternative. It is important that we persuade more Americans that they, too, can make the leap from chimney sweep to man of means and arrive at that happy moment in life when they begin to worry about their children growing up spoiled. That article of faith is necessary, but it is more important that it be true, and making it so will require simply everything that conservatives have to offer, from the fiscal to the familial.” The Politics of Poverty: From the fiscal to the familial, conservatives have the right answers.

IRS

The Left does this all the time, but will they ever be punished? “The Internal Revenue Service has revoked the tax-exempt status of a conservative-aligned charity for engaging in political activity as far back as the 2004 presidential election — including statements opposing Hillary Clinton for president. The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, based in Manassas, Va., “has shown a pattern of deliberate and consistent intervention in political campaigns” and made “repeated statements supporting or opposing various candidates by expressing its opinion of the respective candidate’s character and qualifications,” according to a written determination released by the IRS Friday.” IRS revokes group’s tax exemption over anti-Clinton statements

The Left gets away with what our side could NEVER get away with. “More battlespace preparation. Somebody should round up statements from OFA and Media Matters and send them to the IRS. . . .” IRS SCANDAL UPDATE

From the comments: “We no longer have rule of law in this country. We are ruled according to politics. You have the criminal behavior regarding the Tea Party and the IRS and now this. And yet the vile, corrupt, destructive Media Matters carries on untouched. It really is infuriating.” IRS revokes conservative group’s tax-exempt

The straw that breaks our backs may be coming soon. “The thing about today’s ruling-class repression is that the ruling class better decide, before it gets in out of its depth, how far it’s prepared to go.” Liberals Digging Their Political Graves

President Obama

Getting ready for the beating their going to take in November. “Tea leaf readers may want to pay close attention to a staff change at the White House. The lawyer who claims that “when an IRS audit found that the tax collection agency had been targeting conservative political groups,” it was her “decision not to tell the president about the findings, in an attempt to shield Obama from charges he interfered in the investigation” is being replaced with a lawyer who is a veteran of the scandals in the Clinton White House, including Whitewater, and who represented him in the Monica Lewinsky investigation.” Obama’s new White House Counsel is veteran of handling scandals in Clinton White House

Winning at all cost. “Winning is something. But is it everything? Taranto proceeds: “No one can deny that Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire were highly skilled athletes. But their accomplishments are forever tainted by their use of banned performance-enhancing drugs. The use of the Internal Revenue Service’s coercive power to suppress dissent against Obama is the political equivalent of steroids. The history books should record Obama’s re-election with an asterisk to indicate that it was achieved with the help of illicit means.” We do not yet have a full accounting of those illicit means, but Taranto quotes, via The Weekly Standard, a depressing tidbit from NBC’s Lisa Myers, who reported that “the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election.” Ponder this:

The IRS commissioner “has known for at least a year that this was going on,” said Myers, “and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What’s going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when–after these officials are briefed by the [inspector general] that this is going on, they don’t disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we–if you can–what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different.” More on ‘President Asterisk’

What is this guy smoking? “Here’s a bit of good news for nervous Democrats: President Barack Obama’s health-care law isn’t going to be the albatross many feared it would be in this year’s congressional elections. Enrollment has soared, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the program will cost less than initially projected and that premiums will rise only slightly this year. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid aren’t popping the Champagne, however. The economy could clobber Democrats in November. And the president continues to alternate between telling Americans how much better things are and deploring how many are being left behind. Both statements are true, but that makes for a message that’s muddled, incoherent and too negative.” Obama’s Good News Isn’t Getting Across

Obama’s Economy

Thanks Obama—I am actually surprised that more of these types of stories are making it past the Obama-worshipping, Marxist-loving media gatekeepers. “With full-time work hard to find, these workers have built temping into a de facto career, minus vacation, sick days or insurance. The assignments might be temporary — a few months here, a year there — but labor economists warn that companies’ growing hunger for a workforce they can switch on and off could do permanent damage to these workers’ career trajectories and retirement plans. “It seems to be the new norm in the working world,” said Kelly Sibla, 54. The computer systems engineer has been looking for a full-time job for four years now, but the Amherst, Ohio, resident said she has to take whatever she can find.” For Many Americans, ‘Temp’ Work Becomes Permanent Way of Life

This is why everyone in our club needs to have a Twitter account. “Democrats are supposed to be the party that all the young, hip people are crazy about. But when it comes to Twitter, Democrats have actually fallen behind Republicans in several important metrics. Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham analyzed how members of Congress were doing on Twitter, and found some surprising statistics. “The median Republican House member has 6,872 Twitter followers, while the median Democrat has 6,015, a difference of about 13 percent,” Ingraham said. “Republican senators enjoy an even wider advantage — 23,252 followers versus 19,429 for Democrats, a gap of 17.9 percent.” That might not be as sexy a “gap” as the debunked wage gap, but for a party that prides itself on being “with it,” the discrepancy is alarming.” The ‘Twitter gap’ is one Democrats don’t want to talk about

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!